Once Upon a Time at Mexico and Chambers
by Spoofmaster
Summary: Finished! A parody of OUaTiM that takes place entirely at a single intersection. I don't own anything.
1. Prologue

Once upon a time at Mexico and Chambers, Agent Sands of the CIA sat in a small Mexican restaurant and ate a plate of pork. He slumped boredly in his seat, his left arm resting motionless on the table in front of him.  
  
And then it twitched.  
  
"Damnit," sighed Sands, as the rogue limb began to thrash around violently, knocking over various glasses and saltshakers, "I knew I shouldn't have gotten it motorized."  
  
He glanced around as if to make sure no one was watching, and picked up his knife. He raised it high above his head, and plunged it into his own left hand. The arm continued to writhe uncontrollably, and he stabbed it again and again.  
  
"How do you like them apples?!" he demanded of his now-mangled prosthetic arm, glaring at it even though it now lay at peace on his plate, leaking oil from multiple punctures. Several people stared.  
  
Sands glared around at them, and turned back to his pork.  
  
Belini slid into the seat across from Sands. He glanced curiously at the battered arm, but deigned not to mention it. Sands in turn glanced at Belini's neon pink eye patch, but was too put off by it to say anything.  
  
"Well?" he inquired impatiently, "Do you have the information?"  
  
"Oh, yeah," replied Belini. "I know just the guy you want."  
  
Sands listened intently as Belini told him of the man called El Mariachi.  
  
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El Mariachi was a legend. Some said he had been raised in the mountains by vicious wild goats. Others said he was the son of Superman. Still others said that this was all nonsense, and it was obvious that he was just a normal guy from Sweden.  
  
He had his share of enemies. One such man, General Marquez, pursued him relentlessly across Mexico for weeks. No one knew why, but he did anyway. One night, he finally caught up, and he attacked.  
  
Now, El Mariachi could defend himself. When General Marquez started to shoot at him, he went into action immediately, picking up his table, which somehow doubled as a machine gun. He shot all of the General's men, but ran out of bullets.  
  
Things were looking bad then, but his girlfriend came out, and she shot General Marquez herself, right in the heart. Now, she had been Marquez's girlfriend first, so he was pretty pissed, especially since she went and shot him. So, he refused to die.  
  
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"And this," Belini whispered, "Is the same General Marquez you are dealing with now. It's a good coincidence, no?"  
  
"Perfect," grinned Sands, rubbing his chin.  
  
"So where's my payment?" growled Belini.  
  
"Ah, yes, that," said Sands, reaching into his trusty book bag, and pulling out a Spice Girls CD case. "I'm sorry, but I couldn't find anything else small enough to put ten dollars in."  
  
Belini snatched the case suspiciously from Sands, and checked to make sure there was really money in it.  
  
"I am curious about one thing, Belini," mused Sands. "You were offered a million dollars. Why only ten?"  
  
"Well," smiled Belini, "A million dollars is a lot of money. Maybe too much. A man could be killed over such a sum. But, ten dollars...ten dollars is a sum we can both live with."  
  
"What if it's still too much?" grinned Sands. "Besides, that Posh Spice is hot. Do you really think I want to give up that CD case?"  
  
"You wouldn't kill me over ten dollars!" cried Belini, gathering his belongings rather hastily. "You wouldn't dare!"  
  
Sands ignored the man as he left, took a pull on his cigarette, and grinned to himself.  
  
"Oh, yes I would," he mouthed silently.  
  
He pulled the remains of his fake left arm off, and stashed it in his bag. He moved his real left hand out from under the table, where it had been keeping a sawed off shotgun trained on Belini. This, too he put away, and he stepped out of the restaurant, into the dusty parking lot at the intersection of Mexico and Chambers. 


	2. The Fate of a Cook

Far away, all the way across Mexico Avenue, El Mariachi sat on top of a pump at an anonymous gas station, strumming a guitar he had found in the gutter. He stopped and watched silently as another Mexican drove up in a pickup truck. The bed of the truck was weighed down with a bunch of men, all quite heavily armed. El wondered to himself if this was legal.  
  
Cucuy stepped from the cab and surveyed the situation. Failing to take notice of his target despite the fact that he was in plain sight and holding a guitar, he stepped inside the convenience store.  
  
At the counter, the two clerks on shift were in the midst of a debate on whether cheesecake was really made of cheese. They fell silent as Cucuy entered, fake smiles plastered to their faces.  
  
"Where is El Mariachi?" asked Cucuy gruffly.  
  
"I'm sorry, but we don't sell movies here," grinned one clerk apologetically.  
  
Cucuy whipped out a gun and shot him.  
  
"Now," he hissed at the other clerk, "tell me where he is!"  
  
The clerk gulped nervously, knowing that no answer he could give would satisfy this man, mainly because he honestly did not know about El Mariachi. His mind raced to come up with a plausible response, but he was saved from having to answer by the sound of the door opening once more.  
  
Cucuy turned to look as El wandered in, his patience for sitting on top of a pump having fled him, along with any thoughts as to why it might be a bad idea to enter a gas station full of weapon-laden crazy people. He idly began to pick through a rack of magazines.  
  
Cucuy turned back to the clerk.  
  
"Is that El Mariachi?" he demanded.  
  
"Ummm...sure!" blurted the clerk.  
  
Cucuy's men surrounded El, who glared at them distrustfully and hugged his guitar. They herded him out to the truck, and piled in with him in the middle. Various weapons were pointed at him, and they drove off.  
  
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Sands reentered the same Mexican restaurant as before, feeling slightly disappointed that there was only one in the entire intersection. He came to stand next to Cucuy, and followed his henchman's gaze.  
  
El sat contentedly at a table in the nearly empty eatery, his back to the door. He picked at a label he had found on his new guitar that announced its true owner to go by the name of Johnny Depp, and generally appeared to be entirely unconcerned about having been violently escorted across the street.  
  
"They call him The, as in El," stated Cucuy. "Wait...no. It's El, as in The. It's Spanish." He looked proud of himself.  
  
"Really?" asked an impressed Sands. "Huh. Well, go tell the Barillo cartel that he's out to get them."  
  
"Why?"  
  
Sands ground his teeth.  
  
"Are you an illegal immigran, or an illegal immigran't?!" he growled.  
  
"That doesn't even make sense," objected Cucuy.  
  
"Well, let's see you do better, you, you...umm...non-order-obeying person!" argued Sands. "Just go do it, okay?!"  
  
Cucuy shook his head and left.  
  
El looked up when Sands sat down across from him, and somewhat guiltily moved his instrument so the label was hidden under the table.  
  
A waitress came around, and nervously gave Sands a plate of pork, which he began to eat.  
  
"You know," he smiled between bite, "I order this same thing in every Mexican restaurant I come across in this godforsaken intersection."  
  
"But...this is the only Mexican restaurant there is in this intersection," frowned a perplexed El. "Wouldn't that mean you just come here a lot and order...the...pork.... ahem."  
  
El stopped speaking as all traces of friendliness fled from Sands's face.  
  
"Shut the hell up, fuckmook!" screamed Sands, suddenly enraged. He stood up quickly, and pork sprayed all over El. "You think you can tell me how to live my life?! Huh?! HUH?!"  
  
"Ummmm...no?" ventured the unfortunate Mariachi.  
  
"Good," smiled Sands, as he sat down again, perfectly calm, and used his fork to push his prodigal pork off the table and back onto his plate. "As I was saying, this is the absolute best this pork has ever tasted. And so, I'm going to go shoot the cook when I am done eating."  
  
"But-" began El.  
  
"I know, if it's so good, why kill him? Well, that's easy. If it's really good, no one but me is worthy of eating it."  
  
"...Okay...."  
  
"Well," continued Sands, "now that we're clear on that, it's time for business. I want you to kill a man for me."  
  
"The cook?"  
  
"Oh, no," laughed Sands, "I'm going to kill him, remember?"  
  
"Oh," said El. "The waitress, then?"  
  
"...No."  
  
"The bartender?"  
  
"No...."  
  
"The-"  
  
"Whatever you're about to say, the answer is no," growled Sands through clenched teeth. "This is much, much bigger than a restaurant."  
  
"Who, then?"  
  
"In a matter of days, the president of Mexico will arrive here in Colorado for a diplomatic visit. During this visit, he will be going to the furniture store across the street in order to obtain a nice chair," explained Sands. "Now, what most people don't know is that a man named Barillo will also be here, along with several members of his cartel and," he raised an eyebrow at El, "he has hired General Marquez, the man who killed your family."  
  
Sands looked at El expectantly.  
  
El looked up from chewing on his nails, and realized that something was expected of him.  
  
"Hmm?" he inquired. "Oh...uh, Oh Gasp!"  
  
Sands nodded sagely.  
  
"You see," he went on, "I want you to kill the General after he has knocked off El Presidente."  
  
"Why not before?"  
  
"Because I said so," muttered Sands darkly. He handed El a bright pink cell phone with pictures of Barbie on it. "I'll call you to arrange a further meeting."  
  
El squealed with delight and pocketed the phone as he hopped up from his chair. He skipped gleefully out of the restaurant, much to Sands's chagrin.  
  
Sands shook his head, and gave an abused sigh. He stood up, pulled out his gun, and headed for the kitchen.  
  
A few minutes later, Sands left the blood-spattered kitchen and ran off. The manager of the restaurant chucked various cooking implements at Sands's retreating back.  
  
"You bastard!" the manager cried, "It took us months to find a replacement after you shot the last one!"  
  
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Only two doors away, Billy waited at the front counter of the pharmacy to meet the man Barillo had sent for. He absentmindedly stroked the head of his beloved German shepherd Snuffles, and glanced at his watch.  
  
A creepy little Mexican guy peered cautiously through the open door.  
  
"Finally," grumbled Billy. "You're an idiot, you know that?"  
  
"Uh...sí?? guessed the non-English-speaker.  
  
Billy rolled his eyes.  
  
"Just follow me," he sighed.  
  
Once they had reached the back room, where Barillo was playing a mouth harp in as dignified a manner as possible, Billy picked up his dog and hid it behind his back.  
  
"I announce...some Mexican Guy," announced Billy.  
  
"Yeah, yeah, go away now," said Barillo impatiently. As Billy left, carefully trying to keep his pet out of view, Barillo added under his breath, "And what the hell's with the dog, anyway?"  
  
He shook his head to clear it.  
  
"Anyways," he told the Mexican guy, "I'm going to switch identities with you! Doesn't that sound fun?"  
  
"Uh...sí?" 


	3. Mild Confrontation

El awoke next to Carolina, the love of his life. He smiled, and reached across to touch her hair. To his surprise and horror, a chain dangled from his wrist, clinking softly. He pulled on it, and found, to his dismay, that both he and Carolina were chained to the mattress by their necks, wrists, and ankles.  
  
"What's wrong?" asked Carolina. El stared blankly at her, trying to comprehend what he had just heard her say.  
  
"Everything!" he gasped, leaping up and dragging both her and half the mattress behind the bed, just as bullets began to smash through the window of the hotel room they were in. He jumped up and ran, pulling Carolina along behind him. The mattress bumped along the floor, briefly became jammed in the doorway, and generally did its best to slow them down.  
  
El came to a window at the end of the hallway and looked out. He jerked his head back quickly, and narrowly missed being shot in the face.  
  
"Oh, yes," he snarled at Carolina, as the camera dramatically zoomed out from the window to show how high up they were, "let's get a room on the twentieth floor! It has a nice view!"  
  
Carolina started to roll her eyes, but was rudely interrupted when El chucked her out the window. The mattress and then the Mariachi were dragged out after her.  
  
"Voon," said the mattress.  
  
El managed to wrestle the mattress around so it was between the two of them and the ground. With their eyes clenched shut, they plummeted toward the asphalt, expecting the worst.  
  
Until, of course, they landed on a passing bus.  
  
The mattress slid off the side, threatening to take them with it.  
  
"Stop the bus!" screamed Carolina, banging on the windshield.  
  
The bus driver promptly pushed the vehicle's self destruct button and jumped out the door. Carolina and El groaned in disappointment as the bus exploded in a Technicolor fireball, launching them into the air. They flew for a ways, hit the ground, and skidded along for somewhere around twenty meters.  
  
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A week or so later, they were married. The happy bride and groom kissed as the manacles connecting them to the mattress were finally shorn off. The skin underneath said manacles was quite wrinkly and gross looking, since leaving them on for so long had caused a rash. The joyous couple grinned at each other.  
  
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El awoke from being mugged in Memory Lane. He ran his hand over his guitar, whose label now simply read "epp." He sighed, glanced at his watch, and moved out of the filthy little alcove next to the church. He paused for a moment at the entrance to the place of worship, and stepped inside.  
  
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Sands plopped into the seat in the priest's side of the confessional he had told El to meet him in, silently congratulating himself on his ingenious disguise.  
  
El stared through the metal grid separating Sands from himself. He couldn't see well enough to be sure, but it seemed to him that Sands was wearing a tie-dye robe, and had a three-foot-long beard. He blinked.  
  
"What was the time of your last confession?" inquired Sands.  
  
"One hour ago."  
  
"And the name of the priest?"  
  
"Sands."  
  
"Okay, well, I don't remember why I met you here, except maybe to threaten you," said Sands. "So consider yourself threatened."  
  
And with that, he left. El scratched his head in confusion.  
  
A gun was heard being cocked outside the box.  
  
El dove to the floor, narrowly missing being hit by the bullets now ripping the top of the confessional into splinters. He rolled out of the wreckage and grabbed the ankles of the shooter. The man fell, and impaled himself on his own gun. Blood gushed upwards from his chest like a glorious communist fountain, and El was quite disgusted.  
  
El frowned and got up, clutching his guitar, though he had forgotten it. Around him, three more men approached.  
  
El placed the guitar's strap around his chest, and swung the instrument over his shoulder to rest on his back. He ran over to a wall, and climbed up it like a squirrel on meth. Below him, the men split up. Two ran to climb the stairs and confront him, and the other began to clamber up the wall. Halfway up, El's most recent attacker slipped, fell, and landed on his throat on the corner of a pew. The force accumulated by his body during the fall cause him to be nearly decapitated despite the bluntness of the pew, and he made quite a mess.  
  
El wondered at this show of incompetence, but readied himself for the coming confrontation with the remaining assailants. He murmured a sad farewell to the guitar, and raised it above his head, ready to bash the first man through the doorway in the noggin with it.  
  
To his mild surprise, the opportunity never came. He waited a full five minutes to be attacked before curiosity finally got the best of him. He cautiously peeked down the stairs and discovered, to both his delight and disgust, that both men had tripped and, in the process, one of them had smashed his nose on the wall, driving shards of bone into his brain and killing him. The other had survived the fall, but landed with his face towards the floor and somehow managed to asphyxiate using the concrete. El snorted and left.  
  
The participants in the church service that had been going on the entire time never even noticed the fight.  
  
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"Are you still standing?" came Sands's voice, tinny over El's Barbie cell phone.  
  
"Actually, I'm sitting," said El. "What was all that about?"  
  
"I just thought it might be fun to try to kill you," Sands chirped cheerfully, and hung up.  
  
El sighed and put the phone away.  
  
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Sands met with Belini again, this time in a Chinese restaurant a few doors down from their previous meeting place. Sands was miffed about not having Mexican pork, but the Mexican restaurant was closed down so the kitchen could be clean and the cook replaced, so there was no chance of it at the moment.  
  
"I need that information you have on Barillo," Sands hissed, his left trigger finger twitching on the firing mechanism of the shotgun he held under the table.  
  
"You gotta pay me more," sneered Belini. "I need another five bucks for booze. I'm sure you can afford five bucks."  
  
"We agreed on ten," glowered Sands. "It's the principle of the thing!"  
  
Belini glared at him with his one eye.  
  
At the next table, a waitress tripped over an inconveniently placed sofa that had blinked into existence without warning, and spilled a soft drink all over a diner and his meal.  
  
Sands snapped.  
  
"That spill just cost you your life!" he shouted. Before Belini could protest or inquire as to why this was so, Sands leapt up, his fake arm flailing. He proceeded to shoot Belini, the waitress, the Sprite-coated customer at the next table, and, as an afterthought, the cook.  
  
"Crap monkeys!" he yelled, looking at the mess he had made. "Now where will I get the information?!"  
  
He stomped around and yelled a bit, then ripped off Belini's eye patch for emphasis. Lo and behold, a wad of paper labeled "Information on Barillo" fell out of Belini's empty eye socket. Sands seized it and ran off.  
  
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After giving the wad of paper to his girlfriend, Ajedrez, Sands stepped out of the video store between the ill-fated Mexican restaurant and the pharmacy. He wasn't entirely sure as to why he had given it to her, but it was, no doubt, highly important to the plot, so he put it out of his mind.  
  
A little kid named Jacob came up to him as he reached the street.  
  
"Wanna buy some chocolate?" asked the kid. "It's for my school."  
  
"Tell your school to go screw itself," replied Sand.  
  
"Okay!" said Jacob, and he ran off.  
  
Sands shook his head and crossed the street to the opposite parking lot. He walked up the sidewalk and into the sports bar/restaurant.  
  
Cucuy was already seated at the bar, holding a generic television remote and staring up at the football game being shown on the screen. Out at Invesco Field, the Denver Broncos were playing against the Green Bay Packers. Sands sat down a few seats away from his henchman, and nodded to him.  
  
The Mexican president's advisor entered the bar, looking somewhat lost. Sands smiled amicably and motioned him over.  
  
"Are you sure that this will all work out?" whispered the nervous Mexican. Sands smiled benignly at him.  
  
"Of course," he grinned. "I never lose."  
  
"How can you be so sure?"  
  
"Let's just call it...creative sportsmanship," laughed Sands. "When the going gets tough, rig the game! Cucuy?"  
  
"My finger is magic!" exclaimed Cucuy cheerfully, mashing down a button on the remote. Up on the screen, Brett Favre could be seen mysteriously exploding, spraying half the spectators with blood and bit of his green and yellow uniform. The crowd went wild, scrambling for pieces to take home as souvenirs, and a riot broke out.  
  
Sands grinned.  
  
"And now," he proclaimed, "We collect on the bets."  
  
"...What bets?" wondered Cucuy.  
  
"You didn't place bets on the game?" asked Sands coldly. "If we didn't place bets on the Broncos, why do you think we just blew up Mr. Favre?"  
  
"I thought you just wanted to blow someone up for the hell of it!" Cucuy exclaimed.  
  
Sands groaned, and pulled out his gun. He shot the television, three patrons, a waitress, the bartender, and, as an afterthought, the cook. 


	4. Utter Nonsense

El sat atop one of the racks in the dry cleaner's shop, strumming his guitar, which he had bought it just before he had moved to Mexico and Chambers with his wife and daughter. Life had been hard at first, but they had been fortunate enough to find both a home and paying work in the cleaners.  
  
He smiled down at Carolina, who was sitting on the counter, holding their daughter. She grinned and waved up at him.  
  
The door flew open, and General Marquez stormed in, followed by a large quantity of soldiers shouting random military phrases a la Command and Conquer.  
  
"Eek!" stated Carolina, for which she was promptly shot.  
  
"Ummm...not eek!" said El's daughter, but she was shot anyways.  
  
El jumped down and smashed his guitar over the general's head in one fluid motion. Splinters flew everywhere, one of the soldiers shot El, and the mysterious little invasion left as quickly as it had come.  
  
El dragged himself over to where his beloved family now lay dead, and wept.  
  
The owner of the cleaners returned from the crapper, and gasped as he took in the grisly scene. Blood was spattered all over the shop, clogging machinery and staining clothing quite horrendously. The man looked down at El, and uttered the only thing he could think of.  
  
"I hope you know that you're paying for this."  
  
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El shook his head, dissolving the memory. He had been avoiding this part of the intersection for quite a while now, knowing that the memories would return when he did. He gripped his guitar, and started along his way again. The flicker of movement caught the corner of his eye, and he looked around.  
  
Cucuy ducked belatedly behind a pillar. El frowned at him, and pulled out his phone. After spending a minute or so giggling with happiness at its pastel coloring, he dialed Sands's number.  
  
"What?!" snapped Sands. Unbeknownst to El, the agent was currently going through severe emotional trauma, since only one restaurant in the entire intersection currently had enough living staff members to be open.  
  
"Is there a reason you're having Cucuy follow me?" asked El, gazing sideways at his pursuer, who was currently engaged in kissing the pillar in a very passionate manner.  
  
"Come to think of it, no," admitted Sands. "I just thought it would be funny, especially since Cucuy is so pissed about you killing his men back at the church."  
  
"I never killed them," El protested. "They just kind of died."  
  
"Huh," wondered Sands. "I guess he's just randomly pissed, then. Heheh. Ta!"  
  
El muttered to himself as he heard the telltale sounds of being hung up on, gave Cucuy one last look of loathing, and headed on his way again.  
  
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Sands smiled to himself. It turned out that there were, after all his trouble, advantages to killing so many cooks that only one restaurant could remain open. Barillo himself was sitting only two tables away, along with his lackey, Dr. Guevera. Their presence would, no doubt, make his job much easier.  
  
Jorge Ramirez plopped down in the seat opposite Sands.  
  
Sands studiously poked the pork chop he had ordered for appearance's sake, watching it carefully for any signs of extraterrestrial life. He brushed some stray hair out of his face, and looked up at the ex-FBI agent.  
  
He smiled.  
  
"Hey, guess what," grinned Sands, bobbing his head manically.  
  
"What?" drawled a much less chipper Ramirez.  
  
"Barillo's right behind you."  
  
Ramirez ground his teeth.  
  
"I know."  
  
"His doctor friend's there too," giggled Sands sadistically. "You know, the one who tortured your partner for two weeks and then killed him?"  
  
Barillo glanced over at them, shook his head, and went back to his meal.  
  
"What's your point?" growled Ramirez. "He can't be arrested for stupid technical reasons anyway."  
  
"Ah, but that's not the issue at hand," Sands reprimanded. "You could always just kill him. Here, have a phone."  
  
"I'll think about it," grumbled Ramirez, accepting the communication device. It was, unlike El's phone, baby blue with pictures of Blue from Blue's Clues pasted all over it. Ramirez, unlike El, remained sober and pouty despite the ostentatious gift. Sands watched him leave, and chewed on his pork chop. He frowned, dissatisfied.  
  
Just a few minutes later, Sands could be heard shooting the waiters, the waitresses, an innocent robotic parrot, and, as an afterthought, the cook.  
  
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The white door to the anime store creaked open, unleashing the smell of books and cheap refrigerators out onto the street. El stepped through, past the plastic milk crates that served as a video return box, past the table bearing fliers for various conventions, and into the store proper. He entered the storeroom on his right, ignoring the shelves of movies and merchandise, as well as the man at the counter.  
  
Lorenzo and Fideo looked up from their viewing of Ranma ½. A smile spread itself across Lorenzo's face, navigating carefully around his mole. Fideo gurgled and swayed a bit, and then compensated by chugging some more sake.  
  
"What's up?" asked Lorenzo.  
  
"There's a big violent thing coming up. Lots of cash is involved, and I need my weapons and some backup," said El. "I see Fideo is still drinking."  
  
"Like a fish," sighed Lorenzo.  
  
"...You do know that that doesn't make any sense, right?" complained El.  
  
"Yes," grinned Lorenzo. "Well, here's your stuff."  
  
El took the proffered plastic bag and checked it. Like he had expected, it contained one gun, a decent amount of ammo, a highly decorative Holy Hand Grenade, and a rubber chicken.  
  
"We kill General Marquez tomorrow. Get Fideo sober by then," growled the Mariachi, and he left.  
  
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Ramirez sat on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, staring sadly at his old ID card from when he had been in the FBI, which had been soaked in red ink and hole punched several times in order to render it unusable. Giving it up as a lost cause, he just went next door to the novelty clothing shop and bought a fake one.  
  
Coming out of the store, he glanced down the sidewalk, and observed Billy entering the liquor store with his dog, whose legs paddled uselessly against the air as he attempted to chase a nearby bird, which merely gave him a disdainful look. Ramirez adjusted his clothing, and followed.  
  
Billy held Snuffles under one arm, and patted him on the head with his free hand. He grabbed some beer from one of the store's shelves, and went to the counter.  
  
"Oh, um," he said as the clerk rang it up, "could I get some wine in a plastic cup, too? You know, for the dog?"  
  
The clerk stared at him, and then at the dog. Snuffles panted and shot some of his fur up the clerk's nose as encouragement.  
  
"Whatever..." sighed the unfortunate worker, as he moved to fill out the request, filling the cup from a bottle marked KT GAPI.  
  
Ramirez stepped forward from his position near the door.  
  
"Here, buddy," he said, pulling out his wallet. "Let me get that for you."  
  
He flipped his wallet open to reveal his newly bought card. It was a poor likeness of a real badge, especially since the photo was of a middle-aged Japanese woman sitting on a couch and grinning in a very creepy way. Luckily for Ramirez, Billy only managed to see that it said "FBI" on it before it flew out of the wallet and landed facedown on the floor.  
  
"Aww, crap," commented Billy. "Oh well. I'll come."  
  
Ramirez picked up his card, and they left. The clerk rolled his eyes, downed the wine meant for Snuffles, and set about putting the beer away.  
  
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Ramirez and Billy sat in the back of a car in the middle of the parking lot. Snuffles lay across Billy's lap, panting loudly.  
  
"I'm ready to come quietly," murmured Billy. "They've had me stuck in that stinking pharmacy for way too long."  
  
"Cool," said Ramirez. "Now...can you get close to Barillo? You know, close enough for a microphone?"  
  
No," sighed Billy. "But Snuffles can."  
  
Ramirez grinned, and put a microphone in the dog's collar.  
  
Up in the front seat, the girl in the driver's seat poked her friend in the arm. The friend looked up from the map she was drawing of the area.  
  
"Spoofmaster," sighed the driver, "do those guys really need to be in my car?"  
  
"Uh...I guess not," muttered the author.  
  
"Then can you get rid of them? I mean, I don't mind driving you out here, but this is a bit much."  
  
"Yeah, yeah," sighed the master of spoofs. "Hey, guys? Could you get out?"  
  
The characters complied, and watched the car drive off.  
  
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  
  
Ramirez called Sands.  
  
"I've got an inside man," he told the CIA agent. "He says Barillo's scheduled for an appointment at the dentist tomorrow."  
  
"Stay with that," commanded Sands. "That appointment is when it's all going down."  
  
"When all what's going down?"  
  
"I...don't know," admitted Sands, and he hung up. 


	5. Blood Dumpster

The next morning, El woke up in a dumpster with no memory of why. He rubbed his sore head in confusion, and crawled out. Upon looking around, he found that he was behind the church, at the bottom of some dingy concrete steps. He shook his head and climbed those stairs, managing to fall down only once.  
  
He emerged next to the furniture store. It was not yet time to do his job, though, and he realized that his hair must be a mess. He ran his fingers through it, and was repulsed by the various bits he found there. The bits, in turn, were repulsed by his hand, but no one really cares about the feelings of nasty bits of stuff, so it doesn't really matter. He spotted a hair salon further up the sidewalk, and went to it.  
  
A few seconds later, he dashed back, grabbed his guitar, and left again.  
  
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  
  
Cucuy peeked out from under the hairdryer his head was in. He silently watched through narrowed eyes as El arrived and got a his hair washed, then cut, then washed again, and then highlighted.  
  
El sat down in the seat next to Cucuy.  
  
"Is everything going according to plan?" asked The over the roar of the machines.  
  
"No," growled Cucuy. "I do not work for Sands any longer."  
  
"I guess that means I don't work for him anymore either."  
  
"I'm not quite sure how you figure that, but what the hell ever," said Cucuy.  
  
"You do know that I'm going to kill you and all your cartel buddies now, right?"  
  
"Yeah," sighed Cucuy. "Just...wait until our hair is dry, okay?"  
  
"Okay."  
  
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  
  
Twenty minutes later, El and Cucuy stepped out into the sunlight. They stood and blinked for a moment, and then both whipped out their guns simultaneously and whirled on each other.  
  
El took aim at his adversary, but Cucuy went and hid behind a pillar. El furrowed his brow and moved to go around the pillar and shoot him.  
  
A nameless thug popped out and shot El in the forehead with a two-foot-long tranquilizer dart, since he had run out of regular darts earlier thanks to the impromptu game of "shoot the driver of that passing car in the neck" that he had played out of boredom as he waited. El crossed his eyes and looked up at it, and collapsed.  
  
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  
  
El came to in a small room that smelled of medicine. He was, for some reason, not even tied up. He pulled the dart out of his head and went toward the door.  
  
Two guards came in to stop him, but their resistance was short-lived. One tripped over his own feet and smashed his skull on the floor, and the other twisted his ankle. The stricken man lay twitching and moaning on the floor. El kicked him in disgust.  
  
El left through the door they had come in by, and discovered that he was in the back of the corner pharmacy. He staggered a bit and left, just as General Marquez arrived. El went entirely unnoticed, despite the fact that he was wearing a shirt with "Hi, My Name Is El Mariachi" written in big, bold letters on the front. El blundered off in a random direction, and it took them ten minutes to even notice he was gone.  
  
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  
  
Ramirez pressed the button on the small black device he held in his hand, and spoke into it, keeping an eye on the dental office in front of him.  
  
"Earlier this morning, Barillo and his...uh...henchmen went into this dental office. They have not yet come out, but I am beginning to suspect that there may be a back door."  
  
He stared blearily at the neon sign in the window that said "Now With Back Door!", and went on.  
  
"I'm going in now."  
  
He released the button on the garage door opener, which had somehow failed to record his words.  
  
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  
  
The bodies of dental assistants littered the floor of the lobby like so many packing peanuts, and an eerie silence filled the air. Ramirez grimaced and picked his way through the mess and into the next room. A man lay dead in one of the reclining chairs, his face covered by a bloody cloth. Ramirez crept up next to the corpse, and pulled away the covering.  
  
"If Barillo wanted to be unrecognizable, he succeeded," he groaned. "The suspect is dead in mid-dental reconstruction."  
  
Indeed, the man grinned grotesquely up at the ceiling, his mouth held open and teeth exposed with various dental apparatuses, including, for some reason, a half-eaten pretzel. The teeth themselves were an unholy halfway between those of Barillo and those of a different man.  
  
Ramirez reached over and grabbed the wrist. Rings flopped from fingers they did not fit and jingled on the hard floor. Ramirez had a flash of inspiration.  
  
"This isn't Barillo!" he breathed into the little black remote. "He's still alive somewhere!"  
  
The door behind him burst open, and a man came in, leaning on two thugs for support. Ramirez thought he recognized the stranger, but such thoughts were dispelled immediately when the man grinned and showed his teeth. Ramirez had thought he was Barillo, but those were not Barillo's teeth.  
  
"Get him," said the mystery man, who, in case you could not guess, was really Barillo with spiffy new teeth. One of the thugs hit Ramirez over the head with a toothbrush, and the last thing poor Jorge saw before he slipped into unconsciousness was Ajedrez entering the room.  
  
She knelt down beside the former agent, and took his wallet.  
  
"Who ish he?" slurred Barillo through he painkillers.  
  
"FBI," frowned Ajedrez. "No...This is just a novelty card."  
  
"That'sh weird," said Barillo. "Oh well. Bring him with ush. We can alwaysh torture him for the hell of it."  
  
The thugs obeyed.  
  
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  
  
Sands trudged nervously past the liquor store. Things were not going well for him this day. El wasn't answering his calls, Ramirez's phone was either broken or turned off, and Cucuy had called and told him he was breaking up with him. Sands was still confused about that last one. In short, Sands was lonely. He paused, thinking, and pulled out his bright yellow Bob the Builder cell phone. He thought for a moment, and punched in a number. To his joy, he actually got an answer.  
  
"Listen," he hissed into the phone, "This is supposed to be the big dance number, so it's no time to screw the pooch!"  
  
"Dude, this is the Blackjack order line," whined the voice on the other end. "Stop calling us!"  
  
Sands blinked in confusion as he was hung up on, and started moving again. He punched a new number into his phone, as he peered hopefully into to window of the Mexican restaurant. He was surprised and delighted to see that there was a sign declaring that they had obtained a new cook and were now open for business once more. He grinned, and stepped inside, just as his call went through.  
  
"Uh..hey," he started.  
  
"Sands, is that you?" inquired the voice of his employer. "What the hell do you want now?"  
  
"Ummm...I need a new phone line," Sands muttered, opening up a menu and pointing out his dish of choice to the waiter. He nodded at Sands, and left to get it.  
  
"I told you, man, we can't just go around giving you a new phone line whenever you feel like it," growled the boss. "We have better things to be doing."  
  
"But I want one!" whined Sands petulantly. "Can't you just do it anyway, just this once?"  
  
"Just this once," sighed the man on the other end.  
  
"Yay!" celebrated Sands.  
  
"Whatever," groaned his superior. "Goodbye."  
  
Sands was a bit put off by being hung up on again, but consoled himself with the fact that he would soon be eating Mexican pork, and soon found himself happy once more.  
  
That is, until Ajedrez slid into the seat across from him with an evil grin on her face.  
  
"Hi!" she grinned perkily. "I'm an evil psychobitch!"  
  
Her point was proven within seconds, as one of her goons plunged a needle into Sands's neck. As he began to fade into unconsciousness, Sands gazed up mournfully at the large group of people suddenly surrounding the table. The surviving staff from all the restaurants he had shot up leered unpleasantly down at him. Cooks stared at him with wild eyes from under their puffy hats, wait staff gripped the backs of chairs so hard that their fingers left imprints, and the Pillsbury Doughboy growled softly at him from the tabletop. Sands's eyes rolled up into his head, and he flopped forward, unconscious. 


	6. Go Freedom Train, Go!

Sands woke up with a massive headache and no clue where he was. He was vaguely aware that he was strapped down to a metal table, and that wherever he was, it smelled very strongly of soap and cat piss. He wrinkled his nose and managed to open his eyes.  
  
"I told you I was an evil psychobitch," Ajedrez commented. "Besides, there were a lot of food service people out for your ass."  
  
"If you kill me, I swear I'll come back and haunt you," threatened Sands desperately.  
  
"Oh, we won't kill you," grinned a strange man, stepping out of the shadows. "The cooks wanted to, of course, but we...persuaded them otherwise."  
  
One of the thugs present in the background grinned and raised his gun. On the side, where he had obviously been drawing symbols to record his kills, the painted images of several ploofy pastry hats stood at rigid attention.  
  
Sands stared worriedly at the stranger.  
  
"Are you...Barillo?" he asked, hoping they would not confirm his dark suspicions.  
  
"Oh my God!" screeched Barillo, "He recognized me! No one's supposed to be able to recognize me with these teeth!"  
  
"I say we poke him in the eye!" yelled Ajedrez.  
  
"I say we just rip his eyes out!" shrieked Dr. Guavera excitedly.  
  
"I say we let him go!" squeaked Sands under his breath, trying not to move his lips.  
  
"No!" chorused the other occupants of the room.  
  
Nothing happened.  
  
Dr. Guavera glanced around, saw that no one seemed opposed to his plan, and proceeded to rip Sands's eyes out with an ice cream scoop.  
  
Sands screamed and struggled, but to no avail. The last thing he ever saw before he lost his sight was a poster explaining the life cycle of a heartworm.  
  
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  
  
Jacob had spent the entire day trying to sell chocolate bars, and had only succeeded in making $2 for his school. Perhaps the embezzlement was not helping things, but it wasn't like he was going to give that source of income up. He sighed, slumped glumly down onto the sidewalk next to Chambers Boulevard, and halfheartedly threw a few rocks at the cars as they roared by. Glass from a window tinkled merrily, and a driver cursed, swerved and narrowly missed crashing. Jacob was cheered up, but only a little.  
  
SJ Sands Stumbled out through the door of the veterinary clinic. He wore his sunglasses once more, obscuring whatever horrors were underneath, but blood dripped down his face and onto his neck.  
  
"Ehhhhhhh..." said Sands.  
  
"Hey, you want to buy some chocolate?" asked Jacob. "Only...eh...$20."  
  
"I'll pay you to guide me around for a while," said Sands, pulling a random bill out of his pocket.  
  
"That's just a dollar," said Jacob, eying the fifty-dollar bill the agent was holding.  
  
"Okay..." Sands dug around in his pocket for a moment, and tried again.  
  
"That's just some yen...and that's a peso..." lied Jacob, beginning to thoroughly enjoy himself. "You should just give me the whole handful."  
  
"Whatever," sighed Sands, complying with the request.  
  
Jacob considered running off with the money. For one thing, he had been raised as a good kid by honest parents. For another, there might be more money coming. He grinned, and took the obviously blind man by the arm.  
  
Despite (or perhaps because of) Jacob's careful direction, Sands managed to run into two pillars and a trash can within the first five minutes. After one of these encounters, Jacob happened to glance back at the sidewalk behind them as he helped Sands around the obstacle. A man wearing a shirt that read "No I am not a cartel thug and I am not following you so stop looking at me like that" quickly hid his firearm behind his back and tried to look as if he hadn't been following them. Jacob looked up at Sands concernedly.  
  
"Are you being followed?" he asked.  
  
"I can't think why, but maybe," said Sands. "What do you think?"  
  
"I think you're being followed."  
  
"Huh. Well, have you ever seen one of these?" Sands unzipped his fly, and reached into his pants. Overprotective mothers across the nation gasped and covered their children's eyes. Sands, oblivious to their reaction, pulled out a rifle. That it should have been impossible for him to walk normally with that down his pants leg did not matter, since the laws of reality had long since thrown up their hands in frustration and given up on matters concerning Sands.  
  
"Yeah,"  
  
"Ever used one?"  
  
"No."  
  
And you never should, because they're very, very bad," said Sands. He paused. "Except, of course, when you're hunting, or shooting a bad person, or committing suicide because everyone picks on you, or working for the military, or-"  
  
"I get the picture," interrupted Jacob. "The guy is getting closer."  
  
"Okay," said Sands. "Now...I want you to point this at that guy who's following me, and shoot him."  
  
Jacob took the gun, and peered through the scope at the cartel thug, who was busy cramming vast quantities of bubble gum into his mouth in an ill- advised attempt to look inconspicuous.  
  
"I can't," whimpered the child after a few long moments.  
  
"What, is the safety stuck on or something?  
  
"No..."  
  
"The scope is broken?"  
  
"No..."  
  
"You're a sweet, innocent little child that can't comprehend, much less come to terms with the thought of randomly killing someone?"  
  
"Yeah, that's the one!" exclaimed a very relieved Jacob.  
  
"Damn," said Sands, taking the rifle and starting to walk again. He collided comically with a small dog, and threw himself dramatically to the ground, dragging Jacob along with him so they both ended up lying on their stomachs facing back the way they had come, Sands with his gun at the ready.  
  
"Right or left?!" demanded Sands, waving the barrel back and forth.  
  
"Left!" cried Jacob.  
  
Sands made a quick, decisive movement and fired. In the wake of the sound, he turned his head toward Jacob.  
  
"Was that my left or your left?"  
  
Jacob rolled his eyes.  
  
"We have the same left, mister," he growled. "You just fired to the right."  
  
"Oh," said Sands, pausing to contemplate the implications of this. "Damn."  
  
"Heheh," commented the current antagonist.  
  
Sands leapt up, shoving Jacob aside in the process, and grabbed for the man. He was rewarded for his efforts by getting a hold on the neck, and managed to point his rifle at the guy's head, even while holding onto him. He poked the man in the chin with the barrel of his gun. Funny, though...he hadn't expected a cartel thug to be so hairy and smelly....  
  
"Wrong man," commented Jacob from the clutches of the thug. Sands groaned and dropped his weapon, letting the hobo he had grabbed go with a whispered apology. He started to put his hands behind his head, but jumped unexpectedly at his attacker, reaching for a handhold. He grabbed an arm, and grinned.  
  
"That's my arm!" lamented Jacob soulfully.  
  
The thug raised his gun and stepped forward a bit to shoot Sands in the face. The toe of his shoe got caught on a crack in the sidewalk, and he stumbled, shooting himself in the foot as he did. He hopped around on one foot and yelled for a bit, stumbled out into the street, and was hit by a car.  
  
"Did I get him?" asked Sands.  
  
"Sure," sighed Jacob.  
  
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  
  
Ramirez awoke in a dank little room, tied to a dank little chair. Two guards were present.  
  
"I'm bored," said one.  
  
"Let's go out for fish tacos," suggested the other.  
  
"Okay," replied the first, and then he pistol-whipped Ramirez over the head quite hard. The two stepped outside, and stopped Billy as he passed.  
  
"Hey, I'm going to belittle you and make you do stuff now," said guard number one. "Watch the hostage, Snow White."  
  
"Hurhur," concurred the other. "You made a comment on his race, and it made me laugh."  
  
Billy looked appropriately hurt, and went inside the back room of the pharmacy. He looked down at Ramirez. Great quantities of blood issued forth from a small cut in the prisoner's head,  
  
Billy untied the retired FBI agent, and helped him to his feet. They looked at each other, and silently left.  
  
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  
  
The Mexican President meandered along between chairs and tables, trailed by his advisor. He smiled happily, and sank into an oversized, lime green armchair. He bounced up and down experimentally, and came to a decision.  
  
"I'll take it," he beamed. Employees of the furniture store hastened to cover it in crepe paper and carry it out the door to the waiting truck.  
  
The sound of gunfire drifted in from outside, and El Presidente flinched.  
  
"Ummm..." said his advisor, "We can just stay here. It's fortified."  
  
"But it's just a furniture store!" protested the foreign ruler.  
  
The advisor bit his lip, then shoved some chairs together and threw his coat over them.  
  
"There," he announced. "A fort!"  
  
El Presidente giggled with childish delight, and dove in. A moment later, his hand emerged and put up a sign reading "No Girls Allowed!"  
  
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  
  
Lorenzo and Fideo lurked uneasily behind a pillar. Around them, members of the Barillo cartel battled against the few bodyguards El Presidente had, and against a much larger number of random people who had just started fighting for the hell of it. One man wielding a broken bottle hopped out in front of a pair of cartel thugs with machine guns, waving his weapon at them and screaming profanities. He seemed mildly surprised when he died, seconds later  
  
"If we stay here, we can wait until it's quiet, and go in without getting shot," Lorenzo told Fideo.  
  
"Screw that," responded Fideo. He grabbed what appeared to be a Japanese graphic novel off of the ground in front of them, leapt out from behind their cover, and chucked it at the enemies. It exploded on impact, killing several cartel members instantly.  
  
Lorenzo peeked around the pillar. To his dismay, all of the cartel members were now approaching with an evil gleam in their eyes.  
  
"What the hell did you do that for?!" he inquired of his ally.  
  
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 


	7. Fin

The taxi containing Sands and Jacob rattled to a stop in front of the furniture store.  
  
"That'll be $50," growled the driver.  
  
Sands fumbled in his pocket, pulled out a handful of bills somewhere in the vicinity of $120, and waved it around vaguely.  
  
"Umm...I'll give it to him," said Jacob, taking the money. "Wow, it's exact change! Pretty neat, huh, mister?"  
  
The taxi driver scowled as Jacob handed him a $50 and pocketed the difference. Sands, oblivious to all of this, pulled out his phone and tried to call his superiors. Unfortunately for him, they were in the middle of changing his phone line, and his phone was therefore dead. At the sound of a cheery automated voice apologizing to him and asking if he would like the pay $5 a minute to stay on the line, even though there wasn't one, he angrily threw the offending object out the window of the car, and pouted.  
  
A passing man was hit on the head and killed instantly. His sudden and unprovoked death instilled a deep-rooted fear of Bob the Builder in his child, who slowly went insane over the years, until he finally went on a rampage, killing ten construction workers and destroying five pieces of heavy-duty construction machinery. Had this unfortunate occurrence not so affected his life, he would have gone on instead to kill cancer and invent a better cheese grater, but such is life.  
  
Jacob, oblivious to such matters, led Sands out of the vehicle.  
  
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  
  
Lorenzo and Fideo wandered past the various displays of tables and lamps, having managed to fight their way into the store. Dead men sprawled across large, comfortable couches in their wake, all shot by the two mariachis and then posed for their amusement.  
  
The Mexican president's advisor was engaged in sneaking away from the makeshift fort that housed his employer when Lorenzo and Fideo arrived. Fideo instinctively tackled him, and Lorenzo went to the fort.  
  
"El Presidente?" inquired Lorenzo over the sounds of Fideo beating the advisor into unconsciousness for no real reason.  
  
"Sí," said El Presidente. "Are you here to save me?"  
  
"We are now."  
  
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  
  
Sands pulled his gloves on dramatically. One wound up backwards, and he muttered to himself as he fixed it. He grabbed his gun from Jacob, who sighed, took it from him, turned it around the right way, and placed it back in his hand.  
  
"Thanks, kid," said Sands. "Now go away."  
  
"Okay," shrugged Jacob. "I need to go get my chocolate anyways."  
  
"There was chocolate involved and you didn't tell me?!" wailed Sands at the kid's retreating back. "Nooooooooo!!!"  
  
His lip quivered as he turned toward the entrance of the furniture store, as he tried to cope with the loss of a snack he had not even known existed. A small cry of self pity welled up from his throat, but he managed to bring himself under control by remembering that in just a few moments, he would be shooting people once more.  
  
The two guards who had been in charge of Ramirez were the only living members of Barillo's cartel that were still outside. The rest of them had followed General Marquez as he had stormed the store a few minutes ago.  
  
Sands fired his weapon several times, missing the thugs by large amounts of space. Several pigeons fell from the sky, and Sands looked proud of himself.  
  
"Hurhur," commented one. "You missed, and I now ridicule you for your inadequacies."  
  
Sands oriented on the sound, and shot him in the throat.  
  
"Hey, you shot him!" yelled the other, shooting Sands.  
  
Sands shot him in the foot for the neat noise it made, and then in the top of the head as he doubled over in pain.  
  
Sands looked proud of himself once more, and promptly fell over.  
  
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  
  
El snuck in through the back of the furniture store. He was slightly hindered by the fact that the back door was closed and locked, but solved that problem neatly by going in through the ten foot by ten foot delivery bay door, which was open. He crawled over the large and sickly green chair that stood in his path, accidentally tearing the crepe paper on it, and went into his super sneaky stealthy mode. He ducked and weaved through the eclectic collection of objects, narrowly missing being seen by Lorenzo and Fideo, who were leaving with El Presidente and numerous wads of cash they had found under a couch cushion. El dropped to the floor, and crawled along in a manner the store's manager would find comical when he went over the security tapes the next morning.  
  
General Marquez, meanwhile, hunted through the store for El Presidente. Despite the fact that he had gone in with ten men, he was now alone, seeing as they had all gotten killed through sheer incompetence. He shook his head at the memory of the event. One man had stubbed his toe on a coffee table, causing him to yell and jump back. He had collided with the man behind him, the rest of the men had panicked, and then they'd all shot each other. General Marquez was not pleased, and he grumbled to himself under his breath.  
  
El popped up from behind a canary yellow futon, guns at the ready.  
  
"Hey, El!" enthused Marquez. "How's your family?"  
  
"You killed them, remember?" pouted El.  
  
"Heh, yeah," reminisced the general. "That was pretty funny, huh?"  
  
In response, El shot him in the kneecaps. And then in the foot, the hands, and the shoulders.  
  
"Damnit," grunted El. "My aim is really off today. I meant to shoot you in the head."  
  
"Urghhhhh..." moaned Marquez.  
  
El stepped forward and pressed the barrel of his smoking gun against the forehead of his sworn enemy, and pulled the trigger. He somehow managed to miss yet again, but tried yet another time, and finally succeeded in killing his nemesis. He let out a whoop of joy, and hopped out the nearest window.  
  
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  
  
Barillo stepped purposefully through the carnage in the furniture store, chomping on a piece of rubber between his teeth to keep the pain away. Ajedrez followed, kicking random corpses in the nuts and other such inappropriate areas, and generally making a mess.  
  
They arrived at the pile that had been, until quite recently, General Marquez, and Barillo shook his head in disgust. He kicked the corpse angrily, but stopped when he noticed that some of it had gotten stuck on his shoe. Ajedrez felt no such compassion for her footwear, and stamped on the already much-mutilated body until it was roughly the thickness of a pancake. Barillo glowered at her, and she headed back off for the front door in a snit.  
  
She leaned against the frame of the doorway, and stared balefully out at the world. Her eyes alighted on the prone figure of Sands, and she grinned evilly, checked to make sure she had her gun, and moved toward him.  
  
Sand's sunglasses had long since fallen off his face, revealing the fact that his eyes had been pulled out and then replaced with decorative ping- pong balls, which Sands had subsequently pulled back out.  
  
"You fucking little monkey," commented Ajedrez, shoving the sunglasses back onto his face and pulling him to his feet. "You don't know when to quit, do you?"  
  
"Nnnnnhh..." replied Sands incoherently.  
  
Ajedrez brought her gun up to his chin threateningly, and then started making out with him for no apparent reason. Suddenly, a shot rang out, and all the rabid Johnny Depp fangirls in the audience screamed and wet themselves, causing the more sane audience members to exile them to a corner.  
  
Ajedrez slumped to the ground, looking somewhat bewildered. Sands's left arm twitched erratically and fell off, revealing his real left arm to be concealed in his coat and holding a pistol.  
  
"Eeheehee," reminisced Sands, and he fell over once more.  
  
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  
  
Billy carried Snuffles over to where Barillo stood, next to a very thin lump of blood and gore. Despite the fact that it has gone entirely unmentioned in this story due to a clerical error, Snuffles had somehow provided invaluable information, and his actions were, in fact, so heroic that he really should have been the protagonist all along. Never fear, though; the person responsible for this ghastly omission is currently trapped in a copy machine, so the crime is atoned for.  
  
Ramirez followed Billy, noticing for the first time how very chubby Snuffles was from never having to walk. Snuffles, for his part, noticed for the first time how very stubby his own legs were, and suddenly felt a wave of shame.  
  
"May I present," Billy started, very deliberately failing to hide Snuffles behind his back, "Special Agent Jorge Ramirez."  
  
He wandered off, scratching Snuffles's nose fondly.  
  
"You know, you can't arrest me," gloated Barillo.  
  
"I know," smiled Ramirez, bringing up his gun. Barillo sputtered for a moment, but was silenced when Ramirez shot him a second later.  
  
"Wow," grinned Ramirez, "That was easy."  
  
Barillo's arm twitched up and shot Billy in the head.  
  
"Wow," frowned Ramirez, "That was random."  
  
He picked up Snuffles and left.  
  
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  
  
Out in the parking lot, Jacob rode up to the carnage on his bike, which he had gone home to retrieve out of boredom. He did not stop quickly enough, and ran over Sands, who moaned.  
  
A gloved hand rose dramatically from the ground, and Jacob grinned.  
  
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  
  
Lorenzo and Fideo trudged across Chambers with El Presidente to the neighborhood. The Mexican ruler's limo was waiting for him there, since he had called it from the beauty salon they had all stopped to get their hair done in. El Presidente clambered in, and the car drove off, leaving Lorenzo and Fideo alone with only each other and their wads of cash.  
  
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  
  
Ramirez passed Sands on the sidewalk. The CIA agent leaned heavily against the wall of a store, bleeding profusely.  
  
"See you around," said the ever-oblivious Ramirez, tossing his borrowed phone at Sands.  
  
"Up yours," growled Sands, rubbing at his temple where the phone had struck him. Ramirez grinned and moved on.  
  
"Are you okay, mister?" inquired Jacob of Sands.  
  
"You will be," Jacob assured him.  
  
"I seriously doubt that, but okay."  
  
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  
  
The last that was ever heard of El Mariachi himself was that he had gone home to the dry cleaner's and taken up knitting.  
  
THE END 


End file.
